Thursday, July 7, 2016

Why You Should Stop Selling Your Book (and Do Something Better)

Now, repeat
after me: selling your book is bad.

“Wait . . .
what?” you say. “If I don’t sell my book, who’s going to read it? Isn’t selling
my book and making money what authors are supposed to do after publication?”

I don’t
know. Is it?

If you want
to ensure your book won’t sell, sell your book.

Here’s what
I mean:

The on-line
world is loaded with authors whining and begging people to, “Buy my book!” They
form groups on Facebook, which amount to nothing more than broke writers
marketing their books to other broke writers. They tweet purchase links all day
and hit up social networks with ads . . . then cry at night because it did
absolutely nothing for them.

How do you
get a following these days with everyone and their dog writing a book,
publishing it and calling themselves an author?

Or how does
someone who starts from scratch come out of nowhere and move copies of their work
without shoving it in people’s faces? (And we’ve all seen them: those authors
whom we’ve never heard of move a gazillion copies.)

To build a
following, marketing your book will get you nowhere. Sure, you might catch a
few sales and feel like a success story all your own—and rightly you should, to
be honest—but to keep those sales going and to build a readership, you need to
switch up your game plan.

You need to
start marketing yourself.

Some people
call this branding. What are we? Cattle? I don’t want a brand for my books. I
don’t want my books to be what I’m known for. I want me to be what I’m known for. When I’m dead and gone, that’s the
thing that matters, not how many books I sold.

Stop
chasing the almighty dollar and start chasing the reader.

You don’t
want to be known as that distant author behind a desk somewhere. You don’t want
to be that high-and-lofty literary guest at some convention. You want to be
that down-to-earth extra awesome person who’s a familiar face at shows and
signings. You want to be that friendly and approachable on-line personality
who’s a class act and is genuinely interested in interacting with their
readers.

“But all I
want to do is write!”

Then get
out of the business, frankly. Or, if you must write, then don’t publish. As
much as I’m an art-first-money-later guy, I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t
want to make a few bucks off what I do. The motivation to make cash isn’t to be
rich, though. I don’t care about that stuff. I just want to make enough to live
on. But I can’t do that selling my book. I have to sell me.

Let me
break it down for you in really simple terms:

When you
first started writing, you went through a lot of trial and error and a lot of
drafts. As you wrote a few books, you noticed your style started changing and
at one point you reached that magical book where everything was different and
you found your voice. Since then, your voice has been your style. Writing is
easier, editing is easier, coming up with stories is easier, too.

This
applies to your marketing efforts. You need to find your voice. You can’t just
be another author spamming the world. There are ads everywhere for everything.
People ignore that stuff. But they don’t tune out unique voices . . .
especially if that voice has something of value to say. This is how followings
are made and grown. You become known as the author “who’s like that.” Not the
author “who’s like so-and-so . . . and a million others.”

I’ve been
publishing since 2003, and indie publishing since 2004. I’ve seen it all.
People have come and gone. There’s been successes and failures. Ups and downs.
Yet there is one thing that has remained consistent throughout all of it: the
authors who found their marketing voice are the ones who are still doing well
today, who have a following, and have cultivated loyal readers based on who
they are and not just their work.

To be
clear, I’m not diminishing the importance of putting out good books. Sometimes
that can indeed be enough to build a readership (i.e. it initiates
word-of-mouth, etc.). But if you’re an author lost to the din of the flooded
publishing world, writing a damn good book is probably not going to cut it. You
need to get yourself out there and expose yourself to readers by showing them
who you are behind the page.

Some
writers niche themselves and become known for a certain thing or a certain
personality. Others are more broad-brush. Whatever the case, simply blasting
ads everywhere isn’t going to do anything for you. But if you meet people,
whether on-line or off-, and not just use it as a means to pitch them your
book, you’ll be surprised at how many copies you’ll move.

Put the
people first, your book/comic/whatever second. This is so important. This about
reputation and, at least for me, I never, ever buy books from people who
blatantly shove it in my face. I don’t care how good the cover is or what the
synopsis is about. As a reader, I want to be cared for. I want to know this
isn’t just a money game to the writer.

Art first,
book(s) second.

And if
you’ve somehow missed the point of everything above, all I’m saying is be
yourself, share yourself, then share info about your book after that.

Connect
with readers first, then point them to the page.

We good?

****************************

About the
Author: An independent writer and cartoonist, A.P. Fuchs has been part of the
underground publishing scene for twelve years. He is the author of more than
forty books, loads of comics, short stories and poetry, and has a weekly
newsletter called The Canister X
Transmission, in which he currently discusses publishing and marketing
tips, past work, indie creator spotlights and whatever’s on his mind that week.
Heck, he’s so passionate about writing and publishing he even wrote several
books on the subject, one a collection of the first year of his weekly
newsletter, another called Getting Down
and Digital: How to Self-publish Your Book. Plus a few others. Sign up for
his newsletter at www.tinyletter.com/apfuchs and get a free thriller
e-novelette out of the deal, and be sure to visit him on-line at his main hub
at www.canisterx.com

6 comments:

Good post! I realized recently that I've been doing this for years because I'm a teacher. My classroom persona is me…but a filtered version of me highlighting my humor and positivity. As I've moved into "promoting myself" as an author, I've found it is much the same. But it's always hard to put yourself out there, especially if you're an introvert!

I've definitely noticed I sell a lot more books when I'm just being social and/or helpful and not trying to market my work. Connecting with readers on a personal level, especially when you're just starting out and/or relatively unknown, goes a lot further than pushing ads at them does.